Less-costly Lecroy scopes court popular 350-MHz to 2-GHz range

Chestnut Ridge, N.Y. - Lecroy Corp., which is known for its high-end digital oscilloscopes, is moving down the price chain with the release of the WaveRunner 6000 series of scopes. At the same time, this well-known scope developer has taken steps to rework its interface and allow designers to more easily "drive" its 6000-series scopes.

The WaveRunner 6000 series includes five digital oscilloscopes that cover the 350-MHz to 2-GHz bandwidth. "Seventy-five percent of the scopes sold are in that bandwidth," said Michael Lauterbach, director of product management at Lecroy.

To make that happen, Lecroy is improving the price and usability of its scopes in the 350-MHz to 2-GHz range. Lecroy said that four-channel 350-MHz scopes with a 1.25-Gsample/second rate and 100-kpoint standard memory per channel are typically priced in the $9,000 range. With WaveRunner 6030, Lecroy said, it has developed a four-channel, 350-MHz scope with a 2.5-Gsample/s sampling rate and 1-Mpoint standard memory per channel. It sells for about $7,500. "This series shifts down the price/performance for scopes operating in this range," Lauterbach said.

To complement its price cut, Lecroy says it has also improved the usability of its 6000-series scopes. Instruments have an 8.4-inch color touchscreen display and dedicated controls for all basic functions. The series comes with a Windows 2000 operating system and a 10/100Base-T Ethernet port. Other standard features include memory management, signal averaging and envelope mode.

All five instruments are available. The 6200 is priced at $25,990, the 6100 at $15,990, the 6050 at $10,990, the 6051 at $7,990 and the 6030 at $7,990.